Building Identity Through Art | It’s Possible: Art

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the people of the emirates are the

makers of its culture the makers of the

impossible

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they dream big act fast and empower each

other

this is what shapes a nation's culture

from all over the emirates

and across the globe

they are working together to make it

possible

art is a basic human right

art is not useless it can really change

people's perception of life

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ever since grade four

i was in a school that did not have art

as a major so i didn't really have

anyone to talk to about art or like

share the same dreams

but when i graduated i went to art

school

it allowed me to be myself

and i am who i am right now because of

this

in college i was a very curious person i

would walk around explore each room so

when i went to the art section

i saw the printmaking studio and

the place just i just fell in love with

it

my practice revolves around printmaking

and photography but i don't really like

to trap myself within these two options

it branches out to sculpture moving

images and so on

i don't have the exact

moment that oh my god i'm an artist you

know me like was not like that

sometimes i even asked myself if what is

being an artist

i started as a studio artist i mean

painting in my living room right

but then

i always wanted to do bigger things so

after i painted this first wall and then

i i was like oh my god it's so much

better

everything is different like

people you meet the way you paint uh the

adrenaline you have the noise

i was like oh my god that's it

you know like

that's what i want to do

there are some

basic forms of communication that are

universal

uh music

mathematics

language

i think art is one of those forms of

communication

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i think eh gombrecht was saying if you

want to know the true history of a time

and a place don't look at the history

books look at the art

through analyzing that you can really

see what was on people's minds

when i exhibit abroad i notice that they

keep asking me do you have the freedom

to express your artwork as a female

artist i'm like yeah i do i haven't felt

that i have a limitation to express

myself i had the freedom to create

whatever i felt like creating

but i find it really important and i

always tell artists that freedom is more

about respecting others

so it doesn't mean that you have your

freedom that means that you have you

would and take the privilege in

insulting someone

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i was sitting in their living room once

with my dad and we were watching uh the

news

and we

they had like this international artist

speaking about his work and what he's

working on

i looked at him and i said

dad one day i'm gonna be

a famous artist and i'm gonna reach

there

he looked at me and he laughed he

thought i was joking and what is this

young little girl saying like come on

when it comes to arts the biggest

challenge is the lack of funds to buy

materials and supplies and the second

one not having someone to tell you that

there is a deadline you need to do the

work the nice thing about living in

limits as an artist is that you get a

lot of support especially if you're an

emerging artist young artist

as a syrian artist it's very hard to

travel and move around because of the

passport that you hold so that kind of

restricted me a lot in my artistic

career

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so i list the 10 countries the places

that i can't really go to that i really

want to go to to you know make art go on

a research grant or anything like that

i made tiny copper plates and i sent

them over these countries to people that

i know there

each location that it went it lived

there for around two weeks

and that was enough time for it to like

change and adapt to the atmosphere there

two three weeks later i received it back

and it was like a completely different

thing from what i sent

and you know seeing the change that

happened on on the surface of the plate

was very interesting to me and it mainly

represented my identity that it's just

always changing it shouldn't be

restricted to one place or

a certain event

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carl gustav young talks about the

collective subconscious and

you know he wrote a lot about how there

are visual symbols in societies that

have never had contact with each other

which mean the same thing

so let's say there are some

commonalities in terms of

if i put up a skull an image of a skull

most people around the world will know

to associate that for example with depth

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i was doing like a regular checkup and

one of it was a an x-ray that was placed

on a light box

and that's where i my inspiration

actually triggered

and from there my uh

first theories

took off which is the bright side of the

bones

it's showing

people from different nationalities

and highlighting on their inner beauty

rather than the exterior

there is no differentiation between

gender age or nationality we're all the

same basically we're all skeletons in

the end

at the start people really didn't

understand what is the concept they saw

my work that it was a bit scary although

it had a sense of humor to it

and uh they weren't approaching me

but that didn't really stop me of

completing the series i kept going

because i really believed what i'm doing

i was able to shift the perception to

the positive side

suddenly took off internationally and

i'm getting media's contacting me from

everywhere

when you believe in something and you

work really hard for it regardless of

how others would perceive it

you would reach there

i came here

for a project i started like

looking for galleries trying to meet

people other artists and everything i

even like i worked the few months i got

any job to to be able to be here for

longer and then i got my first

exhibition everyone was looking at the

city in the same way i was looking like

oh my god this is a great place to do

something new

and then i end up here

for 90 years now

sometimes i would have a request like ah

can you paint a portrait uh realistic

but no it's not but i know who can do it

then i start saying okay you know we can

link like this artist with this project

there we can make it a platform which

can support the emerging local scene

but then

i had no idea about like business i

didn't have any experience in business

management

i had the same problem most artists had

which is i need a space to work from i

was looking to open a space to try and

solve this issue when

i

quite organically and randomly bumped

into tarsila

i essentially do more of the

operation side

keeping the team together we're a team

of five people

i didn't want to be that corporate

thing

i wanted something that

was like a family

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the environment that i'm living in today

in the emirates is different to the one

that i was born in and i don't believe

that i can entirely change the ecosystem

that i live in but at the same time

merely by me being in this ecosystem

just like everyone else you also affect

that ecosystem

i think rumi said everyone knows the

raindrop falls into the ocean but not

everyone knows that the ocean also

merges with the raindrop

i've been living in a mclaren for

over 10 years when i moved there was

just the beach so that helped me a lot

focus on my practice it was also a good

thing because

we moved to a bigger house i had the

opportunity to build the studio and to

make the dark room happen

where i could go in and work whenever i

want

when covet 19 spread it was you know i i

had facilities that i could work at

the studio that i built is home i can

it's a dark room that i made it's a mini

dark room that i could use whenever i

want

so i process

color in black and white film

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and i used as a mini cinema to project

the film and watch what i what i

processed

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having different nationalities even in

uae and collaborating on projects and

working with others it's it actually

transform knowledge to one another

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this diversity and the culture exchange

is a very important aspect for the

creative industry this project talks

mainly about

how countries are linked together and

how if one country changes in other

changes what's called untitled landmarks

as an artist i wanted to give back to

the community so i created the paintless

door and i started to give opportunities

for artists emerging artists to exhibit

their artworks and sell their works as

well by

promoting it through the database of art

collectors or art lovers

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if i could try to associate the emirates

with one simple identity i would say

it's the future the beautiful thing

about the emirates is that they have a

blank script they're writing their

identity now and we're part of them

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